My mom was diagnosed 3 years ago with Alzhiemers. Her mind has been on a steady decline but things have been manageable. She was healthy and taking no meds at all. In Dec. she had, what the doctors called, a cyncope, she basically passed out, scared the hell out of me and we spent 3 days in the hospital. They did find she had a UTI. We went home and all was well for the next month. She caught a cold started having these sudden jerking motions and we ended up in the hospital again. At the emergency room they said she had a UTI but at the time of discharge (after 3 days and a battery of test) they said the cultures came back negative and she was healthy as a horse. We came home and 5 days later the jerking motions restarted and got stronger. After 2 months she had all the signs of a UTI. I called the doc., he sent antibiotics after 48 hours of antibiotics, miraculously the jerking motions where gone, her mind was clearer and all was good again. Five days after treatment ended the jerking motions began again and we have been dealing with them since then. Although her urine has no color it is a bit cloudy and she has been complaining, occasionally of pain in the lower pelvic region (new complaint for her). I took her to the Urologist and no UTI was found. Since then the jerking motions have been increasing and occuring almost every day. Some are getting pretty strong. (She has had 2 EEG and 2 CAT scans in the last 5 months.) I am managing to get her to drink 3-4 glasses of water a day and I have found it helps but does not eliminate the problem. The Neurologist suspects she is having Myoclonus seizure's that may be caused by an underlying UTI infection. Sorry for the rambling but I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this experience or something similar to it? Thank you for your time......

2 Answers

Mother has Alz mid- stages. Myoclusions (sp?) started last summer. First trip to hospital we were told that her potasium was low and she got a shot of it and recovered. So we thought. later we found that these are part of Alz and not an actual seizure but a muscle spasm. Doc prescribed an anti-anxiety which makes her sleepy and kind of out of it. We don't like it so we only give it to her, in a lower dose, if she has a very "jerky" day. She tells us they are painful and when she has them she is almost parallized so we have to basically sit her down ourselves. We now walk behind her with a wheelchair handy just in case. Sometimes she can feel them coming on. We got an inexpensive sound monitor, like the ones for a baby's room, so we can here her if she tries to get up and or calls for help.

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